Edwin MacPhisto

TCM. Grandpa owns you.

It's a pretty silly theory. There's so much music in every era that you're never going to find some arbitrary 10 years that blow. I like what happened in the second half of the 90's a lot more than what happened in the early 90's, for what it's worth.

Listened to it a few more times, and I think my feelings are pretty much mirrored by the review over at Pitchfork. Only difference is that I still like "Justify My Thug" quite a bit more than they do.

Low blow, BPS. Thou art RETARDIFIED. Best band ever, no. Good damn music and impeccable singles, yes. Anyway, aside from ridiculous ad hominem: I'm going to do sort of the opposite (having not read the rest of the thread and hoping I haven't been preceded) and say that the most narrow-minded music fans tend to be people who don't like rap. I mean, they'll dance to "Gin and Juice" and "California Love" at a party, but that's it. It's definitely the most frequently stereotyped genre in the mainstream - and often not without cause considering what makes up most of the big hits - but I rarely get a bigger rage-fist when someone tries to blow off Mos Def as cash-money-hos crap. Oh, and they like "So Fresh So Clean" too. A little bit of Outkast goes over nicely with anyone.

Unless you find Squeeze for a dollar...no, that's even a stretch. Isn't it just Sterling Morrison and a few other guys? Gross. Don't hurt yourself, boyo.

Well, I think the question comes down to what the Continental Tire Bowl wants to do. GT and UVA are going to be pretty much even come end of the season, especially if we (Virginia) win the game this weekend. UVA sold out all their Tire Bowl tickets last year and played a great game to beat West Virginia, so I have a feeling they'd love to have them back for a second year in a row if they could get them. There's the off chance that either team will win out, in which case they could even jump past Clemson in bowl committee esteem, and get into the Tangerine. Not likely, though. Considering the low expectations at the beginning of this season for Georgia Tech and the fact that last year was UVA's first bowl game in a few, I don't think anyone's going to turn down even the Humanitarian Bowl. It's a lousy locale and a junk game, but it IS for some bizarre reason on January 3, and it will be the only bowl game on between the national championship and the rest of the BCS. Two young programs getting the undisputed television spotlight one day before the Sugar Bowl = a pretty damn good consolation for going to Boise. And yes, I just wrote two full paragraphs on the current 5th and 6th place teams in the conference. Told you I was the ACC guy.

::puts in the new Jay-Z album:: I really don't get people who say rap isn't melodic. With the exception of spoken/sing-spoken vocals it's the same as any other music. The musical difference between a Justin Timberlake single and a Jay-Z single is...oh, wait, nothing, because the Neptunes produce and arrange both. As for where the larger discussion has headed now...whoo. Not touching this one any more.

Oh, I'd definitely be the ACC dude if I bothered to post more. I've grown to love all brand of Tobacco Road football in the past few years. We've just been such a horribly dull conference this year that it's hard to have much to say. Virginia and to a lesser extent Maryland and NC State have seriously underperformed from preseason expectations. This was supposed to be the year that these three teams really stepped up and kicked FSU to the curb, and instead they're all doing worse than they did last year, when no one was expecting them. Add Clemson and Georgia Tech being Okay but nothing great, and it's a really, really bland year in the ACC. It's all parity - everyone's trading wins all over the place, and everyone's losing on stupid mistakes. No team in the conference has a stellar defense, and this season has been plagued by sloppiness on all accounts. I'm not sure if next year's going to be better or worst. The past few years have proven that the middle-of-the-road teams in the conference can hang with FSU, Miami, and VT, but rarely beat them. If the "upcoming teams" continue to underperform next year, it's just going to be the powerhouses hanging up top, predictably, for quite some time. Al Groh and Chuck Amato (UVA and NC State coaches) are both team alumni who love to start good, young players, so I think they stand the best chance of recruiting into greatness. Until then, ain't much to say in the ACC.

Just finished my first listen. On initial impressions, a lot of the songs - especially "My 1st Song," "Justify My Thug" (snicker), and "December 4th" - are as good as anything he's ever done. The production is all over the place and a little disjointed - it's weird going right from Eminem production into Rick Rubin. It is, however, even more of a just-Jay-Z album than The Blueprint was: aside from a couple background bits from Mama Jay-Z, Pharrell, and Cedric the Entertainer, it's just him. The rhymes are solid as always, though admittedly it seems as if there aren't as many jump-out-and-grab-you-with-their-brilliant moments as on his best albums. Like any album, it'll take a few listens to really sort things out, but I like it very much thus far.

You know, we still haven't replaced our microphone. Sigh.

Last year the ACC's 6th bowl bid was the short-lived Seattle Bowl. I can't decide if the Boise Bowl is better, but in the meantime I'll hope to god that UVA can at least squirrel into the Tangerine after a disappointing year. Ain't no way I'm going to Idaho. Anyone catch Miami OH's brutal beatdown on Marshall tonight? I do hope that all three of the big MAC schools this year sneak their way in on some at large bids.

Drew Goddard brings it. I'm incredibly pleased to see that he handles Angel as well as he does Buffy. This episode was great, and the shot of Wes shooting his robo-father the instant he threatened Fred spoke mountains and mountains. Great ending, too. Drew Goddard seems especially good at bringing issues of the family into the Buffyverse, after his efforts with "Lies" last year. And major kudos - see how much better Spike is without bloody and mate all the time? I really, really, really liked this episode.

Weird moment: VH1 is showing a TV movie about The Temptations, and it's got J. August Richards (Gunn!), DB Woodside (Principal Wood!), and Bianca Lawson (Kendra!), the latter of whom plays Diana Ross. BIZARRO!

No one on this planet has green skin unless they've been involved in a wacky and hilarious spray-paint accident. More importantly, blackface has a lifeline stretching back to minstrelsy, which is about as racist a practice as you can get. It was still prominent even at the beginning of the 20th century and you really can't put on blackface without invoking that legacy one way or another. Your idea is nice, but it ignores a pretty major history.

So I can't think of the last time we did a Survivor Series style match, and I really want to read it. FINISH MATCH NOW

It most certainly does. If you can't prove that he had any racist intent with what he did, then you can't do anything about it, or at least I don't see how you could. It's not about proving his intent. Look at my post again - regardless of his intent, even if he is just guilty of "not thinking it through" as you suggest, he should be punished, big time. He decides whether or not people will go to prison for sizable chunks of their lives and how they will be punished for their crimes. The job is one where you simply can't fully divorce personal life from public responsibility. Have him apologize, take his punishment, and move on, or get him out of there. It would have been a retarded costume in an entirely different way, but yeah.

"Does he use racial slurs in a demeaning way in his everyday life?" I'm glad you're not in charge of the law or assessing punishment for this incident because that's pretty silly. It doesn't matter if someone has a history of being a "blatant" racist. He's a frickin' public figure who gets to decide if people are innocent or guilty in a court of law, and he's out there in blackface and PRISON GARB. If his costume is a prisoner, then he doesn't need the blackface. When you put on blackface you're doing something steeped in a very dark tradition, and when you put on CHAINS and a PRISON JUMPSUIT, you are *certainly* making a pretty clear statement. It doesn't even matter if this judge really is racist. You're all leaping to defend a guy who is a JUDGE and who dressed up in a fashion that I would say, intentions or not, appears undeniably racist. Can such a thing be funny? Yes. Does it mean that he is a racist? You know, maybe not. Is it appropriate for his position? Not at all. The NAACP is more often than not ridiculous and outdated nowadays anyway, but that doesn't change the fact that this guy deserves some heavy reprimand from some direction. He's a public figure; he's a figure of authority and a representative of the United States judicial system. If you're a college kid and you want to do this cause it's funny, fine - you'll probably get your ass beat, or at least get tagged as a racist, but hey, you can accept those consequences. If you're a judge, the implications and consequences go way beyond just you.

I think you're overestimating "bad pub." Revolutions is going to make another pile of money for them; the entire trilogy is gonna pull in over $600 million domestic and another heap on top of that worldwide. It's not going to be hard at all for them to get another job, and unless they decide to make a fluffy romantic comedy, that picture will do just fine too. I dunno about "overthough tripe" either. If they're going to be accused of anything, it's of being too superficial and stylistic, not too profound.

::shrug:: I had a great time. It pushed past a lot of the dumb philosophy that really dragged Reloaded down in favor of two incredible action centerpieces and what I thought was actually a pretty solid ending. Really, the Zion battle was pitch-perfect, and Spoiler (Highlight to Read): I certainly don't share everyone's complaint that it was weak because no main characters were around. The city was important enough, and that Mifune guy (nice Toshiro shout-out, Wachowskis) screaming and shooting increasingly gorgeous representations of the enemy for half an hour worked for me. I actually really, really liked that Morpheus and co. weren't there for the fight; it was a tremendously interesting action structure to have them limited simply to getting there as fast as they could. I mean, a lot of people have said that we were emotionally invested and what-not in Helms Deep because of everyone being there, but I'll take this scene over that anyday. Much better orchestrated and loads more creative, and you'll never get me to give a shit about Gimli or That Retarded Elf Captain Who Shows Up And Gets His Ass Broke Like A Sucka anyway. I'll grant that a lot of that is due to the flexibility of that great 360 degrees of movement, magnificent set, and the versatility of the futuristic/machine premise, but man. Still superb. Really, I think the half hour or so of that Zion battle is outright wonderful in pretty much every aspect. And that last battle was great, too, if anti-climactic at its finish. Short version: nowhere near a perfect film, but it's got the best action scene of the year hands-down and certainly doesn't deserve the drubbing most have given it. I think Roger Ebert, while usually spot-on about movies, is especially on-the-ball with his 3-star review for Revolutions.

Fun episode. The wrestling was silly, but I liked #5 and I especially liked the walks, talks, and reflections on heroism. But please, someone sit the Angel-only writers down with Joss or Drew Goddard and have them get a Spike tutorial. He was awful in this one. Only a few writers really seem to have figured out that he doesn't need to say "mate" or "sod" every other line.

I really shouldn't vote because I've still never seen Jackie Brown. Maybe I'll remedy that this weekend. I'm calling it Pulp Fiction for now. When Kill Bill vol. 2 comes out and I can sandwich the two together as a whole, that might pull it off. It certainly the potential so far, as everything in the first part is on par with and often even more flat-out amazing than his finest moments.

FAKE-OUT! I'm very glad they're pushing past the "there's a bad guy in CTU!" stuff early, because the possibility seems to arise every year. And now I begin to wonder where the real threat is... Excellent ep tonight, continuing along after a busy, busy opener. Once again I'm hooked.

This is going to be wonderful and'll mark the first time I tune into SNL this year. Sharpton came to speak at my school, and while half of his ideas are way out-there and there's no way he's should win the Dem nomination, he's a wonderful speaker and he's got great comic timing. I also think he's ballsy enough to go along with whatever political jokes they throw him.

This was the one with the pineal gland jokes! Ha. A goodie.

So I write for a magazine back in my hometown, and because of some business involving a film festival, I've got the opportunity to talk to Joe Bob Briggs about a few movies and just ask him some general questions about film, his career, and his wacky life. I'm interviewing him tomorrow at 1 PM eastern. So, if there's ever been anything you desperately wanted to ask the high priest of the B-Movie and you think I might be able to work it in, now's your chance. Zing!